Very few today would dispute Singin’ in the Rain’s reputation as the greatest studio musical of all time, but it wasn’t always so.

Released in late March, 1952, the film was a modest success when first shown, but won no major awards. It was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy, but lost to With a Song in My Heart, the musical biopic of singer Jane Froman, starring Susan Hayward. It received a modest two Oscar nominations for Supporting Actress Jean Hagen and for the film’s Scoring. Its showing on TV in the 1960s increased its popularity and its showing in revival theatres in the 1970s made it accessible to younger audiences who hadn’t had the opportunity to see it on a theatre screen before. In 1989, it became one of the first twenty-five films placed in the National Film Registry. It was one of two 1952 films that made the list.

I’ve seen Singin’ in the Rain, on TV, in the revival theatre, on VHS and standard DVD, but in none of its previous iterations did the film look as brilliant as it does on Warner Bros.’ glorious new Blu-ray.

Designed as a showcase for some of producer Arthur Freed’s old songs – he had been a popular lyricist to composer Nacio Herb Brown’s music from the dawn of movie musicals – the film became much more thanks to the delightful screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and the singing and dancing of Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds under the astute direction and choreography of Kelly and Stanley Donen.

The film, which mimics the change from silent films to talkies has seen its plot paid homage to in the current Oscar winner, The Artist and its songs paid equal homage to in TV’s Glee.

The stand-alone Blu-ray release includes the bonus feature, ‘Singin’ in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation”. The Collector’s Edition also includes a 48 page commemorative book, lobby cards, a standard DVD version of the film and a standard DVD of special features culled from the previous DVD release as well as a usable umbrella.

Quite a different fate awaited the release of another 1952 film, Stanley Kramer’s production of High Noon, written by Carl Foreman, directed by Fred Zinnemann, photographed by Floyd Crosby, scored by Dimitri Tiomkin and starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lon chaney, Jr., Otto Kruger, Lloyd Bridges and Katy Jurado. The film was an instant hit, winning the New York Film Critics Award for Best Picture followed by Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Screenplay and Promising Newcomer (Katy Jurado) and wins for Best Cinematography, Score, Actor (Cooper) and Supporting Actress (Jurado).

Viewed by both Kramer and Zinnemann as a highly moral western about a man with a crisis of conscience, but to screenwriter Foreman, his screenplay about an Old West marshal who must face four gunmen alone was something more. It was a parallel to the fate of Hollywood veterans being abandoned by their friends as they faced the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Although the film was generally well-received, there were those who felt it was un-American, especially in the final moments as Cooper throws his badge in the dust in disgust.

The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay and won for Best Song (“High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin’)”; Score; Editing and Actor (Cooper). It was the other 1952 film placed in the National Film Registry in 1989, its first year of existence.

Olive’s Blu-ray upgrade is immaculate, but there are only two extras, the film’s trailer and a “Making of” documentary transposed form the previous DVD release. Leonard Maltin’s commentary includes the erroneous remark that Cooper’s Academy Award was his only Oscar. Actually it was his second of three. He had previously won for 1941’s Sergeant York and would win an Honorary Award at the 1960 Oscars shortly before his death in 1961.

Olive has also released a Blu-ray upgrade of 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The first and best of three versions of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel, Don Siegel’s film can be viewed either as a warning that the Commies are coming or as a metaphor for the hysteria and fear of McCarthyism. It starred Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones and Larry Gates as inhabitants of a town slowly being taken over by pods made to resemble the original humans.

Initially released as a routine science fiction film in its day, the film developed a cult following when it was shown on TV several years later. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1994.

The Blu-ray upgrade looks and sounds terrific, but there are no special features.

The art house hit Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is director Lasse Hallstrom’s best film in years. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s his best film since 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

Ewan McGregor stars as a Scottish scientist who reluctantly gets involved with a British public relations consultant (Emily Blunt) and a Yemini sheik (Amr Waked) in introducing salmon to a man-made lake in Yemen. Filmed on location in London, the Scottish highlands and the Moroccan desert substituting for Yemen, the film was a major success in England, so much so that the tourist board of Yemen had to issue a warning to would-be tourists that Yemen does not have a salmon fishing industry.

The film benefits from its gorgeous location filming as well as the fine performances of McGregor, Blunt, Waked and supporting players Kristin Scott Thomas as an aide to the British prime minister, Tom Mison as Blunt’s missing-in-action fiancé and Rachel Stirling as McGregor’s disapproving wife.

This week’s new releases include the recent British remake of The Deep Blue Sea and the Blu-ray debuts of Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco.